Apologies if this has been asked before, but I've been looking for this for a while and haven't been lucky.

I'm a developer, recently started developing MEL and API plugins for Maya. I'm curious as to how fire, fur, cloth, particle effects, shaders etc plugins are written in the API.
I'm looking for some source code examples (nothing too amazing, just an idea how these are achieved), or even just text explantions of the theory behind developing these type of plugins etc.

Or I'd be happy for some basic info like how are fire effects (for eg) achieved? With particles or how? How are shaders coded? that kind of stuff. I've seen the www.ewertb.com already BTW...

Any pointers to books (other than Complete Maya programming D. Gould) would also be great..

Thanks in advance!

Jhavna

01 January 2004, 03:06 PM

OK.. no response... Well, what about anything about writing plugins or API development?

As I said, I'm particulary interested in anything like fire or water... (even MR shaders..) but any resources will be welcomed!

There must be more API resources on -line other than ewert's site...

please? /..\

MDurante

01 January 2004, 04:37 PM

In terms of writing shaders/textures for the Maya Renderer, I know that many examples are provided in the "Developer's Guide" that is included in the maya docs. Source code is in ..\Maya5.0\devkit\plug-ins\. How this translates into mental ray -- don't know.

Sorry if that's obvious -- but that's where I'd start.

I once wrote a 2dtexture node, but that was long ago -- I probably can't help much.

Have fun,

- Matthew Durante

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